


Getting Ready for the Parade + The Parade

by IlIcythings



Series: Trans!Alec [3]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: 5+1 Things, Gen, Trans Male Character, Trans!Alec, brief mentions of other charcters, but he's actually called david bc he hates the name alec, my oc from the first fic in the series lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29277933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IlIcythings/pseuds/IlIcythings
Summary: “Uhm, sir?” the young PC asked.“I’m not here in a police capacity, Collins, it’s Hardy today.”“Oh, okay. Uh, Nice pronoun badge.”“Thank you,” he said as a slight smile crossed his face, “my daughter made it for me. Do you want any help running the stall?”“Yeah! That’d be great.”
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller
Series: Trans!Alec [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992193
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	1. 1 - David's Phone

**Author's Note:**

> Highly recommend reading at least the previous work in this series, or most of this won’t make sense.
> 
> Particularly important note, David is Alec, Ellie just made him realise that he could change his name to something he didn’t detest so much. I’m still using Alec in the tags so it will show up in searches a bit easier, but the character only goes by David in the story.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A series of texts between David's phone and Ellie Miller's.

### Ellie Miller

_ yesterday _

Is it okay if Tom comes along?

Of course. What about Fred?

Beth offered to babysit while I’ve got the stall up, he’ll join us for the parade.

_ 11am _

Are you ready yet?

This is honestly the most excited you’ve ever been for a social event.

Miller, did you get the flags or not?

I’ve got them, I’ve got them. Heading over to yours now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The formatting was a fun(?) challenge  
> uhm,,, i could make it less janky with work skins but also i dropped coding in year 10 for a reason (it will frustrate the living daylights out of you)


	2. 2 - Events Occurring Immediately After Texting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie picks David up

David looked up from his phone and then started a little when a car horn sounded from his driveway. He quickly grabbed his bag and headed outside to greet Miller.

“Look at you, all dressed up in your regular attire, David!”

“What can I say? It suits me!” He paused a bit, while Ellie groaned at the terrible pun, before adding, “You look, uh, really good as well.”

Ellie smiled a little wider. “Thanks, David.”

They walked over to the car, Ellie getting into the driver’s seat and David in the passenger’s seat.

David put on his seatbelt before suddenly realising something. “Ellie, you sent me a message just as you pulled in, were you texting and driving?”

“What? Oh, no! Tom was driving, he wants as many minutes of supervised driving as possible.”

Tom popped their head behind David's shoulder, between the two front seats. “Hi David!”

“Jesus!” David exclaimed, pretending to clutch at his chest, “Don’t scare me like that!” This resulted in giggles from Tom which led to David chuckling a bit too.

“Alright, settle down,” Ellie interrupted jokingly, but quickly turning serious, “we’ll be late if we stay here too long. Plenty of roads are closed as well, that’s not going to help with the traffic, hey. Seatbelts on?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah.”

“Great, Let’s get going!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhm,,, I don’t know how driver’s licences work in the UK so I made an educated guess, hopefully it makes sense/ you didn’t notice.


	3. 3 - The Face Painting Stall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie's talent in painting comes in handy

After a few minutes of work, Ellie put down the last box she had hauled over from her car on top of the one David plopped down. “Alright, I’m going to set up my stall here for a few hours, before the main parade.”

“Still can’t quite believe that you can do face-paint, Miller.” David said.

“High school art is the only qualification you need Hardy; it’s mostly just rainbows and flags.”

“Still, Daisy sent some pictures of your practice on her. You’ve got a lot of talent.”

“Thanks, David.” She set down a case full of various paints on the trestle table. “What are you going to do for the next couple of hours?”

“There’s supposed to be a stall handing out pronoun pins. I might help out a bit.”

“Alright. Meet back here at quarter to two?”

“See you then.”

Over the next few hours, Ellie saw many people coming by and asking for a bit of face paint, whether it be kids wanting a little unicorn on their forehead or Maggie and Jocelyn requesting matching hearts on their cheeks. At one point, Beth came around with Fred – who she was babysitting – and little Elizabeth, who was thoroughly enjoying all the bright colours. Fred asked for the wonder woman symbol in the bi pride colours, so it was like his mum, which made Ellie shed a quiet tear, while Lizzie wanted lots and lots of blue especially in star shapes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not know how to write children (despite legally being one), so Fred and Lizzie got zero dialogue.  
> Also there was no real reason why it had to be Ellie, or face painting. I just wanted to. Isn't writing amazing???


	4. 4 - Pronoun Pins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashley was not expecting to see their boss at the pronoun pin stall, especially with his own pin.

Ashley Collins looked up as DI Hardy meandered over to their stall, which was handing out pronoun pins. He paused for a second to admire the range of pins, with various pronouns, colours, and flags to choose from.

“Uhm, sir?” the young PC asked.

He looked up and quickly recognised Ashley. “I’m not here in a police capacity, Collins, it’s Hardy today.”

“Oh, okay, that’s cool. That’s a really nice pronoun pin.”

“Thank you,” he said as a smile crossed his face, “my daughter made it for me.” David glanced back down at the pins quickly before asking, “Do you want any help running the stall?”

“Yeah! That’d be great.”

Ashley hadn’t exactly planned to spend a few hours running a pronoun pin stall with their boss, but it was better than they thought it could ever be. David was really good at explaining to new allies the various pronouns and why people might use them, and he was really patient as well. The best part was the complete lack of misgendering, of Ashley themself, or anyone else who decided to come up.

At one point Ellie’s son, Tom, came round and grabbed a he/they pin to put on his rainbow lanyard. “Hiya Hardy! D’ya know where my mum is?”

“Last I saw she was still at the face painting stall.” He pointed in the general direction, and his eyes caught the time on his wristwatch. “Oh, it’s about time I headed back anyway.”

David turned back towards Ashley and said, “It was a pleasure running the stall with you, Collins, maybe I’ll see you later!”, before disappearing off into the growing crowd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ashley is back!!! Apparently they are now a recurring OC (They're nonbinary and use they/them pronouns btw)


	5. 5 - Costume Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> David gets changed in time for the parade.

David looked towards Ellie as she brandished her brush.

“You ready for this Hardy?”

“Wait, I’ll smudge it when I try to get dressed, let me do that first.”

“You bought a change of costume?”

“I wasn’t going to wear my customary CID suit to my first pride parade. Wait right here.”

David dashed off to the nearest bathrooms – that happened to be in the police station as the parade started quite close – holding onto his bag as if it were full of gold. Once inside he carefully pulled each piece of the outfit from the bag and put in on, folding his suit up to put in the bag to prevent as many wrinkles as possible. Finally, he stepped out of the stall for the final part, the bowtie. He tied it carefully, using the mirror to make sure that it wasn’t uneven or crooked.

He walked back out and was met with a gasp as soon as he came within Ellie’s sight; he counted that as a win.

“Paint me a rainbow, Miller!” he joked.

“Sir, yes, sir!” she replied.

A few minutes of work was all it took. Now it was time for the flags. Miller had brought plenty of them and it was time to divide them up between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Original chapter summary: Does what it says on the tin


	6. +1 - Time for the Parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We get to see what all this preparation led to!

It was finally time for the parade.

David was wearing a magnificent suit absolutely covered in rainbows. Ellie had managed to do a really nice bit of face paint on him too, so he had a rainbow on each cheek as well. He had a pride flag draped over his shoulders like a cape, with his pronoun pin proudly on display.

Ellie had a similarly colourful outfit, covered in glitter and tinsel. She had managed to give herself two little flags on her cheeks, one pride and one bi. She wore a bi flag as a cape and had managed to stick little pride flags in her hair as well.

Tom walked with some of his mates from the GSA at their school, a full alphabet of pride flags between them.

Maggie and Jocelyn walked arm in arm, under a single lesbian pride flag, with their cheeks sporting matching rainbow hearts.

Ashley proudly wore the pride, trans and nonbinary flags all at once, without any of them falling to the amazement of some watching.

It was a happy pride in Broadchurch that year. It was bright and colourful, and for many informative and transformative. The energy from the event lasted past the afternoon of celebration and followed everyone back into their everyday lives for the following days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk when prides are held worldwide, but near me there are ones in the afternoon which are family friendly, which is neat! Considering Broadchurch is a bit of a holiday destination, I thought they'd try to keep it fairly PG.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write David and Ellie at pride. That’s it. And here I am with a 5+1 written out. I am aware that David is probably far too happy to be in character compared to Broadchurch, but this is the world where everyone is happy, sooo yeah.  
> Please try to ignore the fact that I was too impatient to upload these once a day or anything. I just,,, did them all at once lol  
> If you noticed any glaring errors, please let me know, I love to fix them, and I'd really appreciate it.
> 
> My tumblr is here: [ilicythings](https://ilicythings.tumblr.com), feel free to drop me a message!


End file.
